In the environment of a named data processing system, the present invention relates to an improved Input/Output data record transfer system using named records.
In an Input/Output data information transfer operation, data information is frequently transferred as records wherein each record may comprise one or more packets of information. Each record may also contain an error check code such as a Hamming Code or variation thereof to provide some means of assuring that the data information in the record was not corrupted by or during the transfer.
In prior art Input/Output data information operation, an error check code could indicate that its associated record was error free even though the wrong record was being transferred due to hardware or other errors involved in addressing or fetching the desired record to be transferred. Also, in some prior art systems, any user could fetch any record merely by knowing the records storage address or by requesting a dump from a data storage unit.
Therefore, to avoid the above-mentioned and other problems associated with prior art Input/Output data transfer systems, the present invention operates to append an unique identification called a name to each record. The appended name becomes a permanent part of the record regardless of where the record is physically located throughout the Input/Output system. Records may be stored and fetched by name only. Further, each error check code associated with a record is expanded to cover also the record's name. Thus, verification is made that the record requested was indeed the record transferred. Privacy and ownership of the information contained in the record is enhanced as the record may be accessed only by one knowing its name.
Since a unique record name is appended to each record, the record is in essence, self-descriptive. Thus, if a directory relating record names to actual physical storage locations of the records were destroyed by hardware or other failures, the directory could be reconstructed by reading the records from storage and recording the information relating actual storage locations and stored record names and records therein.
Therefore it is an object of the invention to provide an Input/Output data transfer method and apparatus providing a high degree of privacy and user ownership of the data being transferred.
It is another object of the invention to provide an automatic identification and verification of data records being transferred through a data Input/Output system.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide unique and permanent identification for each record being transferred through a data Input/Output transfer system and to provide for an error checking operation covering both the record and its unique identification.